| The Avatars | |
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The Avatars, shown in their (season seven) headquarters (Extreme Makeover: World Edition) — Charmageddon). |
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| First appearance | "Sam I Am" |
| Last appearance | "Vaya Con Leos" |
| Created by | Brad Kern |
| Statistics | |
| Name | The Gathering Storm, The Avatars of "Force and Power" |
| Purpose | Creating utopia, ridding the world of "good" and "evil", recruiting powerful beings to add to the collective. |
| Powers | As the avatars, they have a collective power, which includes:
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| Membership | Current Known Avatars
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The Avatars are fictional characters in the WB television series Charmed.
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Avatars are an ancient group of magical beings who can bend the very fabric of time, space and reality. Their power is often described as the ability to manipulate time and space, through which they can reverse time, and even create alternate realities. Unlike witches, warlocks, demons, Whitelighters and Elders, Avatars are categorized as neutral. Theoretically, their powers are unlimited, since they are not constrained by either good or evil. Their ultimate desire is to shape the world to their own design making it a perfect world and will do anything in order to keep it without any sort of conflict whatsoever.[episodes 1] Avatars exist outside of time and space.
At one point in time they tried to impose their will in the past, but the magical community revolted, and good and evil working in combination created a very powerful potion with which to destroy them. The threat of this potion alone was enough to force the Avatars to withdraw. Unlike most magical creatures in the Charmed universe, Avatars are magically connected to each other. If one member of the collective Avatar dies, it affects all Avatars, making them weaker and less powerful both individually and as a group as demonstrated when the Avatar Beta was killed by Kyle Brody with a potion.[episodes 2] This had similarly been applied to the Charmed Ones[episodes 3] and later to the Triad.[episodes 4]
In Charmed, the Avatars are depicted as a peaceful, yet powerful collective whose sole purpose is to create their version of Utopia, by putting all humans to sleep temporarily and ridding the earth of all evil beings during the slumber. The Avatars promise that upon awakening, the war between good and evil will be over and humanity can lead peaceful and happy lives. However, the promise of Utopia comes with a very high price: the loss of free will.[episodes 1]
The Avatars made their first appearance in late 2002, when two of them came to Cole Turner and asked him to join their ranks.[episodes 5] Cole at first rejected their offer, and attacked them. However, even as powerful as Cole had become by then, his energy balls had absolutely no effect on them.
Early in 2003, Cole realized what the unlimited powers being an Avatar might provide him. By this time, he had gone mad due to his efforts to win back his estranged wife, Phoebe Halliwell. Cole figured that the Avatars' ability to warp the fabric of reality could give him one final chance to get Phoebe back. He agreed to become an Avatar, with the Avatar leader Alpha agreeing in advance that Cole could use completely unlimited powers once for his own purposes.
Cole then used his new powers to create an alternative reality for his personal gain, where the Power Of Three was never recreated after Prue Halliwell's death. In this reality, her half-sister, Paige Matthews, had been killed by the Source prior to the Elders or the surviving Charmed Ones finding out about her. Cole did this with the belief that Paige was responsible for turning Phoebe against him.[episodes 6]
When Alpha realized what Cole intended, the Avatar leader directly warned Cole (just before Cole cast his spell) his actions would have consequences. Alpha then appeared in the alternate reality, to Cole's great surprise. Cole cast his spell in a way that would remove anyone's knowledge in any reality of what he had done, but since Avatars exist outside of space and time it had no effect on them. Alpha then told him that he wasn't an Avatar in this reality, nor was he the Cole made invincible by the numerous powers he'd acquired from the Demonic Wasteland. Rather, he was Belthazor, who had never been vanquished in this reality. Cole considered this an acceptable risk; he told Alpha that he realized he and Phoebe had been at their best while he was still half-demon.
Unfortunately for Cole, Alpha was quite correct. While Cole had the same powers as the Cole–Belthazor he displaced, he was also subject to the very same physical and magical vulnerabilities as Cole–Belthazor. Cole thus inadvertently created the circumstances that led to him being vanquished once and for all.[episodes 6]
During Season 7, Leo became an Avatar in desperation, wishing to use the powers to bring Piper and Phoebe back from the dead, and to also prevent the destruction of all reality, that could result from the unending warring of good and evil (he saw this danger in a vision quest, that Alpha had entered into). Leo then placed high faith in the Avatars' dream, seeking to create a better world for all. After that, the Avatars sought and recruited magical help from the Halliwell sisters. Having long desired a demon-free life, the sisters agreed to go along with the Avatars' plans. Utopia was then created, a new world reality and order under the watch of the Avatars.[episodes 2]
Afterwards, Leo checks with the sisters to see if Utopia has met its promises. However, Leo witnesses how the Avatars are maintaining Utopia.[episodes 1] Alpha explained that they had modified the way people think, so as to allow people to more easily accept Utopia. Unfortunately some people were beyond hope, and their inner demons began to surface, driving them to cause conflict. This in turn drove the Avatars to intervene in order to protect Utopia; they simply removed anyone who caused conflict from existence.[episodes 1]
The demon Zankou convinced Leo to shock the sisters into seeing what had really happened. Leo sacrificed himself to the Avatars, creating conflict by battling demons at the party held in the manor. The next day, Phoebe realized Leo's dying warning as her power of premonition reminded her of all the losses they'd faced. She discovered that they'd not only lost their free will, but the ability to grieve and feel pain (nobody died in Utopia, but simply "went on to a better place"). Phoebe helps Piper remember her loss of Leo, and Paige's loss of Kyle.[episodes 1] The sisters meet Zankou and learn of the existence of potions that can vanquish the Avatars.
The sisters then realized that as much as they wanted a demon-free life, the loss of free will was a higher price than they were willing to pay. Zankou and the sisters confront the Avatars and threatened to vanquish them unless they rewound the world to as it was before Utopia was created. The Avatars agreed, and said they would retreat until another time, when people would be ready to accept Utopia.[episodes 1]
In a season 8 episode, an Avatar made a brief appearance when Piper summoned her and the Elder Sandra.[episodes 7] She demanded an explanation as to why the Angel of Death wanted to take Leo away. Sandra and the Avatar didn't have the authority to answer her question. But they give Piper the information of a higher power who looks over the Grand Design, the Angel of Destiny.
The Avatars' abilities limited only by the total power of their collective of members. The abilities shown in the shows follow:
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